there are less large-N, statistical studies available on this topic which renders it more difficult to robustly determine that such environmental peacebuilding initiatives are the direct causes, rather than outcomes, of more peaceful interstate relations. Environmental peacebuilding in the Middle East The 1991 Madrid Conference, co-sponsored by the United States and the USSR, brought together representatives of the governments of Israel, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan, and a Palestinian delegation within the Jordanian delegation. The conference established working groups on refugees, regional security, economic development, water, and environment. The working groups on water and environment, and to some extent the one on economic development as well, had the agenda of bringing environmental cooperation and sustainable development into the formulation of a path to a sustainable Middle East peace. The subsequent Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization and the Peace treaty between Jordan and Israel each had sections that envisioned joint committees on water, environmental cooperation and economic development. When negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority stalled and relations again became strongly adversarial, progress towards cooperation on water, the environment and sustainable development also stalled. At the formal level there are contacts across adversarial lines between government officials and experts, water infrastructure was kept out of the violence of the Second Intifadah, and there is some degree of cooperation – not widely publicized - on urgent water and environmental concerns. Cooperative relations between Jordan and Israel have been maintained but progress is limited by the effects of the unresolved Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Diplomatic work on environmental peacebuilding in the region has been supplemented by the development of a small network of civil society organizations that promote and practice regional environmental cooperation. Organizations involved in environmental peacebuilding in the Middle East Israel-Palestine Center for Research and Information IPCRI opened in 1989 during the first Intifada under joint Israeli and Palestinian directors. IPCRI established the Water and Environment division in 1992. A 1993 edited book presented Palestinian and Israeli perspectives on water cooperation. Three IPCRI workshops held between 1994-6 on "Our Shared Environment" were followed by three volumes of papers from the workshops. The IPCRI Water and Environment division took the lead in organizing a 2004 Israeli-Palestinian International "Water for Life" Conference, co-chaired by Israeli and Palestinian professors, held in Turkey, where over five days about 130 participants from the region were joined by about 50 international water experts. Subsequently, working